Needs Help: Badass Damsel

The distinction seems fairly clear from the page images: Badass Damsel is of Lois Lane kicking ass, Badass in Distress is of The Goddamn Batman not kicking ass. I don't know if the definitions or descriptions actually match that, or if it's even as simple as I've let on.

edited 25th Jun '13 2:22:29 PM by MorganWick

I'm the one that added the Badass in Distress image a while back (although not the exact current one). The Badass In Distress is basically someone unquestionably badass that finds themselves uncharacteristically helpless. The Badass Damsel is someone who is vulnerable enough to find themselves trapped, bound or kidnapped, but strong, feisty or courageous enough to make it hell on their captors.

The fact that the last few posts have included five opinions from four people seem to illustrate the fact that we don't have consensus on a definition yet.

I'd say there are two separate tropes here: Defiant Captive, which is when someone refuses to go quietly, even if they don't actually have any hope of freeing themselves. They refuse to cooperate even if it's clear that they're essentially helpless.

The other would be Damsel out of Distress, which would be a subversion of Damsel in Distress, where you'd expect them to be a Damsel in Distress, but instead they engineer their own escape — or at least try, rather than meekly sit around and wait to be rescued.

Defiant Captive would be about attitude, while Damsel out of Distress would be about actions. A captive who constantly harasses their captors while waiting to be rescued would be a Defiant Captive but not a Damsel out of Distress; a captive who pretends to be meek, cooperative, or cowed by their captors while secretly working on an escape plan would be a Damsel out of Distress but not a Defiant Captive; a captive who harasses and mocks their captors and works on an escape plan at the same time would be both.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Sounds good. I like the idea of splitting it.

That might be a better way of going about it. At the very least, there is a troe here that relies on the audience expectations of a Damsel in Distress not being met.

edited 25th Jun '13 5:06:44 PM by Arha

Defiant Captive basically sounds like a heroic/sympathetic counterpart to Poisonous Captive.

Damsel out of Distress sounds too narrow as written. Plotting an escape is almost superficial; the actual act of escaping or otherwise subverting helplessness is what makes the trope.

@28: I would support that distinction [edit]with the clarification of about DOOD[/edit].

edited 25th Jun '13 5:15:45 PM by Nohbody

All your safe space are belong to Trump

Then that leaves a weird gap for examples where a captive attempts to escape but either fails or doesn't get a chance to try their plan for one reason or another, and it doesn't fit in either of the tropes as we've defined them so far.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

It seems that would fit more along the terms of Defiant Captive, which now that I think about it, might also be too narrow. A Defiant Captive seem to be defined by two things: 1) they complicate their own capture and 2) they don't rescue themselves. It seems to me that someone who plots an escape or who attempts one and fails would fit that trope better.

The second trope would be for people who flat out rescue themselves from capture, ambush or peril, or otherwise take the fight to the villains.

edited 25th Jun '13 5:43:50 PM by KingZeal

I dislike the split because of overlap and/or confusion with Redundant Rescue. This trope is about the character's personality rather than their success rate. Secondly, by making 'succeeds in escaping' a defining criterion that can make the whole trope spoiler.

As it is, the current trope is a mess, though, with examples which go anywhere from "captive tries to reform kidnapper" to "captive complains about rescues they don't like".

So, Damsel out of Distress and Badass in Distress would have the same relationship as Badass Bookworm and Genius Bruiser do?

For this trope, it seems like we need to list the different captive and escape tropes to see where the tropes might fit. But I am inclined to do the lazy thing and suggest we merge Badass in Distress and Badass Damsel. Let anyone who wants to create a new trope go to ykttw and do it the traditional way.

• Damsel in Distress
• Badass in Distress
• Poisonous Captive
• Badass Damsel
• Redundant Rescue
• Action Girl

I like the idea Native Jovian had, but can see we need to work on subtle trope distinctions. Unless we change the definitions of established tropes, I think ykttw is a better tool.

edited 28th Jun '13 4:21:57 PM by crazysamaritan

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

As currently defined, Badass Damsel seems to be "subversion of Damsel in Distress where a damsel-y character engineers their own escape rather than waiting for rescue". A lot of the examples, though, are "Damsel in Distress who takes a defiant attitude with her captives, instead of a meek or hysterical", which seems worth splitting off into its own trope. There are also a lot of the examples are just "female Badass in Distress" or even just "Action Girl, no disgress necessary" which are flat-out wrong.

I'd propose:

1. Renaming Badass Damsel into Damsel out of Distress to make the relationship with Damsel in Distress more clear and avoiding the "Badass" snowclone, using the "Damsel in Distress who escapes rather than needing to be rescued" definition.
2. Rewriting the Badass Damsel / Damsel out of Distress description to suck less.
3. Splitting off a Defiant Captive trope with the "captive who takes a defiant rather than meek or hysterical attitude". I don't see why that one needs to be gender-specific, personally, since it applies to the Distressed Dude just as well as the Damsel in Distress
4. Purging bad examples, of which there are many.

edited 28th Jun '13 5:40:12 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Your Damsel out of Distress definition is Redundant Rescue, which is "split" into Fridge Logic (Why did you even try rescuing the Badass?) and comedic (I feel like a fool because you rescued yourself) variations. This point was raised by Chaotic Novelist and left unanswered.

Your Defiant Captive definition is a heroic/sympathetic counterpart to Poisonous Captive. The "heroic" versions, at the moment, are Pity the Kidnapper, and Talking Your Way Out. Your proposal leans heavily towards the Pity trope. This point was raised, in part, by King Zeal.

If your two proposals are still completely new, then we have to make sure that the existing tropes acknowledge that, and relate to it. There may be other tropes that influence this action. I'm pointing out that we may have already invented the wheel, and that's easier than making more. ;)

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Your Damsel out of Distress definition is Redundant Rescue, which is "split" into Fridge Logic (Why did you even try rescuing the Badass?) and comedic (I feel like a fool because you rescued yourself) variations. This point was raised by Chaotic Novelist and left unanswered.

Your Defiant Captive definition is a heroic/sympathetic counterpart to Poisonous Captive. The "heroic" versions, at the moment, are Pity the Kidnapper, and Talking Your Way Out. Your proposal leans heavily towards the Pity trope. This point was raised, in part, by King Zeal.

In that case, my proposal would be to turn Badass Damsel into a disambiguation and split the wicks between those two.

edited 29th Jun '13 8:30:53 AM by StarSword

Uh...what? They don't automatically overlap. What if no one else comes to rescue them? What if they escape on their own, but the cavalry shows up to assist?

edited 29th Jun '13 10:40:28 AM by KingZeal

Redundant Rescue, going by the description, doesn't seem to be about being kidnapped or captured, but more about combat. It's about a badass taking out an entire horde of mooks singlehandedly, then having someone else "rescue" them from the last guy standing, or something to that effect. A lot of the examples are about kidnappings and such, but that's just Square Peg Round Trope, and those examples should be moved to Damsel out of Distress, if we make it.

Poisonous Captive is about a captive undermining their captors from captivity. Pity the Kidnapper is about a captive who is so annoying that their captors want to get rid of them. Talking Your Way Out is about a captive manipulating the psychological weaknesses of their captors to escape. Defiant Captive would be a captive who maintains a defiant, willful attitude despite being at their captor's mercy. They're all completely separate tropes.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

For the record, I like the name Damsel out of Distress even if it implies a successful self-rescue. That's not a trivial problem, as that's the part that implies redundancy with Redundant Rescue even if the emphasis is on the area where they don't overlap.

Actually, Redundant Rescue is itself a problematic name, as it seems to imply a trope that as it stands is only a piece of Type B, even ignoring the fact that Type A is subjective and Type B is supposedly objective, or the dreaded existence of "Type A" and "Type B" at all.

edited 1st Jul '13 9:51:13 PM by MorganWick

There is no problem with Redundant Rescue; Alice comes to rescue Bob but he's already rescued himself. Simple. If we keep this trope focused on personality instead of events then there will be no overlap.

Read the page. That is not what Redundant Rescue actually is.

I did and my point is still valid. Neither the Fridge Logic type nor the comedic type talk about personality. All it does it talk about a certain kind of plot event. Badass Damsel does not talk about plot events nor does it refer to The Hero specifically.

The trope I was referring to in my last post was What Kept You? which I remember was merged into Redundant Rescue and had a much clearer and more concise definition.

edited 6th Jul '13 2:31:32 PM by ChaoticNovelist

I actually don't think overlap is much of a problem; my point was that even the idea of putting conditions on it to avoid overlap misinterpreted Redundant Rescue. Even the comedic type includes lampshadings of the Fridge Logic type and simple cases of "I could have gotten out of this myself, you know", while this trope, even if it talks about plot events, can be about failed self-rescues or even simply weakening the enemy from behind enemy lines that wouldn't overlap with Redundant Rescue. The mere existence of overlap is, by itself, not so much of a problem as to be avoided at all costs. Quite frankly, not only would I want to hard-split the YMMV and objective-trope parts of Redundant Rescue, I'd also want to soft-split the objective part between mere lampshaded possibilities and actual redundant rescues, but that's probably a topic for another TRS thread.

edited 6th Jul '13 5:50:27 PM by MorganWick

I like that. Failed escape attempts, sabotage, defiance etc are all activities that I believe Badass Damsel is trying to get at. They create the impression that 'this character is not docile'.

@43: Native Jovian -

Sorry for not responding earlier. Good points. :)

Redundant Rescue is Example as a Thesis, with no clarification made after the thesis if the trope is limited to combat or works whenever the attempt at rescues is redundant. You mention moving the kidnapping examples to Damsel Out Of Distress, but that doesn't work for the male examples of capture. Now, doing repair work on that trope and separating the "types" would be a good move, but not directly affected by the work here.

Second part: A captive who maintains a defiant, willful attitude despite being at their captor's mercy will apparently not cause them so much trouble that the captor has more trouble holding them than the character is worth? Ithink of the 4th Die Hard film, where Mc Clane's daughter gave away useful information to her father, as well as having harmed and distracted her captors at opportune moments.

These are all tropes that show the captive is not going to submit, and will continue to disrupt their captors actions, possibly more effectively than if they were not captured.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.